


The Second Night

by jennerallyspeaking



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Drug Withdrawal, Emotionally Repressed, I love them so much, M/M, Pining, confused and sharing a bed, references to the pub scene in the book, theo has always loved boris, theo is a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 17:56:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19728799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennerallyspeaking/pseuds/jennerallyspeaking
Summary: A few months after Amsterdam, Boris comes to New York and stays with Theo for two nights.Theo feels everything.In short, he amazed me.Please read the opening notes.





	The Second Night

**Author's Note:**

> The Goldfinch has been my favorite book for years. I don't know why I didn't write this sooner.
> 
> I literally haven't written traditionally in about a year. I've been working solely on scripts, and now I'm seriously rusty. It doesn't help that I tried a different style than my own while writing this oops!
> 
> Please excuse any mistakes you may find throughout. I hand-wrote 80% of this one evening and then transferred it to my computer in one sitting a week later. I'm also unhappy with the very beginning of the fic, up until "Are you well?", but I PROMISE it gets better.
> 
> I love you! Thank you for reading!

Boris doesn’t sleep well the first night. At three in the morning, I hear him groan from the living room and turn on the television, flipping channels for twenty minutes before settling on a true crime documentary. The musky scent of a fresh joint finds its way into my room.  
  
When he does fall asleep, he sleeps late, and when I leave my bedroom hours later to get something for us to eat I find him slumped over the edge of the couch, arms pinned tightly behind his head. He looks much older than he did in Amsterdam, and shades paler than he had been the evening before. I wonder if jet lag is responsible for the insomnia.  
  
I watch him stir as I set up breakfast: two glasses of orange juice, a loaf of bread, some grapes. I duck my head as he opens his eyes, focusing intently on the chips in my countertop when he makes his way into the kitchen.  
  
“Hi,” he says, punctuating the greeting with a gaping yawn.  
  
“Good morning,” I reply, handing him a glass.  
  
He finishes the juice in one go. “I noticed something interesting last night, Potter.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“No pills. Anywhere. No syringes on the counter, no blow, no _nothing_. Are you cleaning your act?”  
  
I nod, a little uncomfortable. “I’ve been getting clean, yeah.”  
  
Boris looks surprised. “How does that feel?”  
  
“Strange.” I watch as he crams a piece of bread into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.  
  
“Are you well?” he asks after a moment.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I mean,” he pauses, grabs the bottle of orange juice and takes a long, deliberate drink straight from the mouth of it. I glare accusingly at the empty glass just to his left, and he dismisses me with a wave.  
  
“What do you care?” Boris licks the rim of the bottle for emphasis. “Is only me.”  
  
I ignore him. “What do you mean, ‘am I well’?”  
  
Another swig of juice. “I mean, Potter, are you happy?”  
  
The question hits me harder than Boris had intended. Was I _happy_? I think of months before, of withdrawals plaguing me with nightmares of the worst kind--visions so surreal they clouded my waking hours with traces of technicolor horror-shows; a fog of biting ash and smoke from my youth settling to reveal a winding carnival of a bad trip; back in Vegas, malnourished and giddy-drunk as before, but with the Vitamin-C deficiency bruises on my body walking right off the skin and morphing into looming shadows; the blood of the man I killed in Amsterdam fountaining from the ragged star of gore I had left in his head, his face in the dream turning to leer at me with fixed pupils and awful yellow teeth; and worst of all through the nightmares--my mother as I imagined her right as the bomb at the Met went off: limbs splayed, face contorted at the brink of surprise, her hair blown in every direction. The force of the bomb throws her backwards, across the viewing room, and I watch the motion over and over as if on a tape. Rewind, play. Rewind, play.  
  
The strangest things about these nightmares is that they never woke me. After an amount of time they would simply fade from my REM cycle, and I would wake hours later in a tangle of damp bedsheets with an uneasy stone settling deep in the pit of my stomach.  
  
But the withdrawals have ended, and with their departure left the nightmares, too, leaving me with far more time of lucidity than I knew what to do with. Was I happy, now? I certainly hadn’t been happy then, in that month of the lowest low I had ever experienced; nightmares defined my nights and seeped into my daylight hours, which were already beset with the flu-like intensity of coming down from a years-long dependency. No, I hadn’t found a _moment_ of levity in that month of gauzy paranoia. My existence was punctuated only by bouts of sharp agony, and the phosphorescent relief of the times I succumbed and popped a pill.  
  
I had wanted to die. But that wasn’t what Boris was asking me.  
  
“Potter?” He leans across the table and grabs my wrist, shakes it. The cool metal of his rings against my skin startles me.  
  
“Yes,” I manage, defensive. Boris pulls back. “I am happy.”  
  
“Okay,” he says. “Was just checking.”  
  
A prickle of irritation runs up my spine. “Are you happy?”  
  
“I don’t think so.” Boris’ reply is nonchalant and immediate. “I don’t sleep much these days either, and it is not like I am doing fun things instead of the sleeping.”  
  
I watch as he tears off another piece of bread.  
  
“But it is not to say that I’m unhappy. That is the distinction.” He shoves a piece of the loaf into his cheek and continues talking, eyes genuine and locked with mine. “Mediocrity. This is life. How can I be expected to be at the top of my match all the time, you know?”  
  
“It’s game.”  
  
Boris stops chewing. “Hmm?”  
  
“Top of your _game_ , not match.”  
  
He scoffs. “That is your problem, Potter. Hy-per-fix-ashun. All your energy went into correcting me on tiny mistake instead of responding to what I said. It is unbecoming.”  
  
“That’s not what that means,” I mutter. “And I don’t have a problem.”  
  
His eyes light up. “See what I mean!”  
  
I shake my head and stand from the table. “I don’t want to start the morning like this.”  
  
“Like what?” Boris asks, taking the opportunity to finish the orange juice. “Honestly?”  
  
“You’re full of shit.” I snatch the juice from his hand right as he finishes, tossing it into the trash. He looks nearly amused as I do it, and I have to step away from him to contain my fresh anger. The kitchen smells like his pot.  
“I’m going to the store.” The words tumble stupidly from my mouth. _The store? For what?_ “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”  
  
I leave him in the kitchen and stalk outside, painfully aware of how childishly I’m behaving. It’s warm out--an unusual New York April--and the streets thrum with energy.  
  
The walk to the corner store isn’t far.  
  
***  
  
I return an hour later with a frozen margarita pizza and a new carton of orange juice: extra pulp, because Boris won’t drink it. The smell of weed has faded considerably, and when I find Boris in the living room I’m surprised to see that he’s cleaned up and dressed. He rises immediately, all smugness from breakfast gone.  
  
“Hello.”  
  
“I got a pizza,” I respond, making my way past him and into the kitchen. He follows.  
  
“I’m sorry about earlier, Potter. Truly.”  
  
“It’s fine. We can forget it even happened.”  
  
“No,” he says, abrupt, and takes the grocery bag from me. He clasps both my hands in his own and looks at me so earnestly it makes my heart ache. “I made mistake this morning. Waste of time. We are both fools, really, but there is no need for us to act like it. Forgive me?”  
  
My mouth is suddenly very dry. I desperately want a cigarette, or a glass of water, but my legs remain locked in place, my hands enveloped by Boris’.  
  
“Okay,” I answer, and wait for Boris to let go. He continues to stare at me, unrelenting, and I yank my hands from his grip with an uneasy laugh. “You’re being weird.”  
  
“I am never weird,” he replies, placing a Marlboro in the corner of his mouth. He offers me a wan smile and I see the cigarette dip precariously from his lips. “You were always strange one about it.”  
  
_About “it?”_  
  
I light a cigarette of my own and head towards the living room, ignoring Boris’ lingering gaze. “Let’s see what’s on TV.”  
  
After ten minutes of mindless surfing, Boris releases a pointed sigh and turns to me, flinging his legs across my lap. I flinch, then stiffen, but Bois relaxes and I know I have no choice but to go along with the motion.  
  
“Mute that.” Boris says it like an order, and I respond with a raised brow. He rolls his eyes. Pouts.  
  
“Please.”  
  
I oblige.  
  
“Let’s talk.” He wriggles his legs further into my lap.  
  
“About?”  
  
“Everything. How did it end with Kitsey?”  
  
“Badly,” I say. He laughs, and a for a moment I’m offended. “A good part of it is your fault, you know.”  
  
Boris’ eyes widen. “My fault? Do tell, Potter.”  
  
“I left the country with you in the middle of my _engagement_ party.” I consider this, and then it’s my turn to laugh.  
  
I tell him about Kitsey for a while and Boris listens devoutly, one hand tangled in his hair and the other lighting cigarette after cigarette. The air is dense with nicotine by the time I finish speaking.  
  
“Your turn,” I conclude.  
  
“What do you want to hear?”  
  
“Wife. Business. Whatever.”  
  
“Ah,” Boris tilts his head back and lets the smoke curl out of his mouth, his eyes still trained on me. “To start, the wife is no longer in picture.”  
  
I straighten on the couch. “What?”  
  
“We separated--two weeks after Amsterdam. Amiably, though; it is no worry. We were always better as friends. I send money for the children every other week.”  
  
I think of the photograph of the waify, too-blonde twins Boris had shown me at the pub months before. Trying to imagine him raising them normally--raising any child normally--is impossible.  
  
Something else occurs to me. “What about the little one?”  
  
Boris grins and nudges me with a socked foot. “You remember! I met him only a little while ago. Looks much more like me than his siblings: dark hair, wild child. I know he will grow up to be heartbreaker, Potter, I see it.”  
  
_Just like his father._  
  
Boris continues, suddenly serious. “I will see them even less now. I am not too beat up about it, but I’m hoping the money will compensate for lost time,” he hesitates, eyes dark. “I need to be better than my father was to me.”  
  
I think of Mr. Pavilosvsky, with his frequent disappearances and benders. I think of his hands laden with heavy gold rings, and I think of the marks they left on Boris’ face.  
  
Boris sees me shudder. “Enough about my daddy issues!” He swings his legs from my lap and folds them to his chest, now a bundle of angles and dark wool. “Many things have happened since our last meeting. I tell you now about the Bulgarian who nearly took me out with a, how do you say, uh, ‘otvertka’....Phillips Head?”  
  
“A screwdriver?”  
  
“Yes! This motherfucker was _crazy_ , you should’ve seen his eyes….”  
  
When Boris spoke, the entirety of his body told the story alongside him. He spoke as ravenously as he ate; most of the oxygen in the room was devoted to recounting the story about the Bulgarian, then another about a deal gone wrong in London, then a third about a drunken escapade just south of Serbia. Although his stories were beyond fascinating, it wasn’t the content itself that captivated me--it was how Boris told them. As he spoke, I was struck with a realization of just how permanent the home he had formed within me really was. I was infatuated with every vocal inflection and change in tone, drawn in by the flit of his hands and the whites of his eyes. I wanted to understand the story behind every scar on his face, to know the culprit responsible for the flowering bruises along his jaw and the shredded skin on his knuckles.  
  
In short, he amazed me.  
  
Dusk settles by the time he finishes, and we decide to make the pizza. Boris pours us wine as it cooks.  
  
“I am not looking to get wasted. Drunk, even.” he informs me.  
  
“Me neither.”  
  
I can smell the pizza begin to burn.  
  
***  
  
We devour it regardless, sprawled over the couch like animals. The end of “Die Hard” is on--Boris adores “Die Hard”--and we watch it in a comfortable silence. I am more drunk from the press of Boris’ knee against my thigh than from the wine.  
  
When “Die Hard” ends, Boris’ knee remains. He mutes the TV, which now preaches the wonders of Oxi-Clean, and turns to me.  
  
“What’s your game plan, Potter?”  
  
The back of my neck erupts in heat. I keep watching the Oxi-Clean commercial and wonder how much of the feeling of his leg on mine comes solely from my creation. Boris clears his throat.  
  
“I’m tired,” I blurt apologetically, choosing to grind out my last cigarette instead of returning his gaze. The spot on my thigh where Boris rests his knee feels like it’s going to ignite. _I have to stand, I have to leave, to do something--_  
  
Boris breaks contact with a sudden and dramatic stretch. “Fair. I did not sleep well last night.” He eyes me, and I swear I catch a flicker of disappointment in his now gentle gaze.  
  
“I’m sorr-” I start, but he cuts me off.  
  
“Don’t be. It was good to talk with you.”  
  
“I can stay here a little longer if you want-”  
  
Boris raises a hand: _shh_. “Really. It’s no worries.”  
  
Shame replaces the flush on my neck as I wave goodnight to him.  
  
_Shame? What the hell do I have to be ashamed of?_  
  
I don’t bother washing up before collapsing into bed. From the living room, I hear Boris turn the television to the same crime channel he had settled on the previous night. Tonight’s story is about a priest murdered by a member of his own clergy. The narrator is describing how the gore was carried out.  
  
Nausea hits me in a swollen wave. I try to imagine handing over the right to anyone’s death to a program like this. How much money would Forensic Files need to offer me to monetize my mother’s death? Boris’? How empty--how desolate would I have to be to capitalize on my loss?  
  
The program changes to a commercial and breaks me from my disgust. My hands shake. I hear Boris enter the bathroom down the hall.  
  
When he exits, stripped to a black undershirt and boxer shorts, I call to him.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
My breath catches in my throat. “Can you come here, please?”  
  
The look on his face is affectionate, confused. He comes nonetheless, joining me on the bed with a foreign hesitancy.  
  
“You can come closer,” I tell him, arms wrapped around my chet. Boris’ eyebrows shoot upward.  
  
_He comes, nonetheless._  
  
“What’s on your mind tonight?”  
  
I swallow, staring straight ahead.  
  
“Christ,” He reaches for me and presses a hand to my cheek. I think I must be searing his palm. “What’s fucking with you, hmm? You look bad.”  
  
A low chuckle escapes my lips as I shift to face him. A sliver of streetlight seeps through my drawn curtains, striping Boris’ face and illuminating a thin scar I hadn’t noticed in the daylight.  
  
“Do you ever think about the man we killed?” I ask.  
  
_The man I killed._  
  
Boris’ face clouds. “In Antwerp? Martin?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Boris considers, then: “Not really.”  
  
My heart sinks. “I think about him all the time.” My words are barely more than a whisper.  
  
“Theo.”  
  
I turn to him, pleading. “How can you not think of him, Boris? We killed him-I shot him-and left him to turn cold in a fucking _parking garage_!”  
  
“He was a bad person.”  
  
“How does shooting him make us any better?”  
  
“He shot me!” Boris shouts, indignant, and jabs at the pucked spot the bullet left on his arm. “He was going to shoot you, too, to kill, and then finish me off in the dark! Better him than us.”  
  
I stare at him fiercely. In the blue of the bedroom he looks almost spectral, and he returns my gaze with a troubled focus of his own.  
  
“Better him than us.” His repetition is firm.  
  
We sit in the dark for a long while, silent, brooding, tangles of emotion radiating from us in harsh waves. Boris is the first to speak.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
I shrug as a peal of laughter sounds from the street outside. Boris scoots down the bed to a more comfortable position.  
  
“What do you think they’re laughing about?”  
  
I wriggle to my back, eyes glued to the ceiling. A second roar echoes from the street. “They’re probably drunk.”  
  
“Maybe,” he says, and then does something very odd, grabbing my shoulder and pulling me so I roll to face him. We are no more than a foot apart.  
  
“Boris.” I say. A warning.  
  
“I think I sleep better in here, yeah?”  
  
All of the moisture has vanished from my mouth.  
  
“Is only me,” he teases, and I groan and shut my eyes.  
  
“You can stay.”  
  
I feel him relax in the space next to me, a low hum of contentment sounding from his throat.  
  
_Damn you._  
  
“Are you going to sleep?”  
  
“Yes,” I snap, but it’s a lie. My nerves are far too alight for any sense of the word, and it only takes a few minutes of prickling discomfort to spur me to grope on my nightstand for a cigarette. I snag a pack of Viceroys and light one, slumped against the headboard.  
  
From below me, Boris says: “That doesn’t sound like sleeping.”  
  
“Jesus, shut up.” I blow a stream of smoke into his face, prompting him to cough dramatically. When he finishes, he looks at me innocently and sticks his bottom lip out a tiny bit.  
  
“Share?”  
  
I pass the cigarette. Its dim halo of orange surges as Boris takes a drag, for a moment warming the bottom of his face in a hazy glow. His exhale is slow.  
  
“Something bothers me,” he remarks, giving the cigarette back. I notice that his nails are no longer ragged from biting, but cut neat and brutally short.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“I said wrong thing before Amsterdam.” Another exchange of the Viceroy. “You remember-in the bar-I said something about us. It upset you, I think.”  
  
I remember well enough. From the corner of my eye I see Boris prop himself up on one arm. His face is awash in concern.  
  
“I didn’t mean it. To discredit our youth.” His bottom lip is swallowed by his front teeth for a moment, leaving scraping, white lines. “I said you thought _it_ was something else. I thought we had something else, too.”  
  
This was unexpected.  
  
“Oh,” I manage, and hold my hand out for the cigarette. His fingers linger against mine for a moment too long, and a perverse longing seizes me by the throat, forcing me to pacify myself with a shaky drag. I can feel Boris’ eyes scouting my expression. Reality swims for a moment.  
  
“When was the last time you were in bed with a boy?”  
  
_A boy_. Funny how we were still boys to him when I felt anything but; I was flattened, fried, overstimulated and bewildered past a point of human return. I had to be a hundred years old, at least. How long had I waited for a moment of sober intimacy such as this?  
  
How many lives would I live before experiencing another?  
  
The cigarette dims. “You were the only one,” I tell him.  
  
“Only me?” He flops to his back. “Really?”  
  
“Who else?” I say, hopeless, and I mirror his position, grinding the Viceroy out on my lamp. A car horn blares outside.  
  
When Boris doesn’t reply--and it’s not like I expected him to--I slide under the sheets and seek comfort in the darkness of my pressed eyelids. I am all too conscious of the hand he has chosen to rest between us. An invitation, perhaps.  
  
Feeling a sudden rush of bravery, I inch my hand closer to Boris’. His fingers are around my wrist in a flash. _Caught_.  
  
He studies me, silent, for at least a full minute. I wonder if he notices his shadowed, purplish dark circles reflected on my face. I wonder if he notices my pulse threatening to burst directly under his middle finger.  
  
Under the lingering scent of cigarettes I can detect my own face soap--clinical, cheap, and generally ineffective--on Boris, but below that I can smell _him_ ; he is sharp and familiar.  
  
It takes a moment to realize that I’ve forgotten to exhale. Boris’ whisper cuts through the silence. “Different this time.”  
  
_He’s beautiful_.  
  
“Sober,” he continues. “It will be very clear tomorrow.”  
  
“I know,” I tell him, and his grip tightens on my wrist. My breath hitches. Boris’ pupils are blown out, almost frightening.  
  
“Why did we wait?”  
  
I roll my hand so our fingers can lock, and I see Boris’ jaw set with resolve. “We’ve always been foolish, Boris.”  
  
“Mostly me, I think.”  
  
A smile tugs at my lips. “I won’t argue with that.”  
  
We hover for a moment longer, and the only thing I allow myself to feel is his cool hand wrapped around mine. The dim light of the bedroom allows me to see an outline of ribs beneath Boris’ t-shirt. I reach for his side but before I make contact, Boris’ face is in mine, his breath warm and irregular on my neck.  
  
“Do you trust me, Theo?”  
  
I think of his hands on me in Vegas. I think of his blood on my carpet and his sweat on my sheets. I think of us in the pool, drunk off our asses under electric blue skies. I think of the press of his hollowed chest against my back, holding me as I sobbed through another night. I think of him screaming my name in the parking garage in Amsterdam, to save myself, to run.  
  
“Always.”  
  
His mouth presses to my neck.

  


  


_In the morning, I remember it all. ___

**Author's Note:**

> I love these two so much. I hope the movie does them justice.
> 
> I always appreciate comments & kudos! Feel free to leave criticisms, questions, words of approval, secrets, etc. below.  
> Thank you for your time :) xx
> 
> this was a hot mess hehe


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